Since moving out of the downtown core less than six months ago, the Windsor-Essex YMCA has been setting some new records.

“It’s been awesome, almost overwhelming with how positive everything has been,” said YMCA general manager Andy Sullivan.

“We have a historical all-time high of membership just six months in. We’ve been in Windsor since 1868 and there’s more members now then at any point in the history.”

Their membership has boomed hitting 2,550, which is up from 400 since their grand opening at Central Park Athletics in November. They’d had to boost their staff to 87 full and part-time employees compared to 16 at the former location.

Sullivan said when the YMCA made the decision to move into a new state-of-the-art facility, a rebrand was needed. Most people were aware of the YMCA but few knew what they really offered. He said for years the YMCA’s newcomer program and language programs kept them afloat. Those programs are still offered at the Victoria Avenue location downtown.

“If people were aware of the brand they weren’t aware as to what the YMCA meant,” he said. “People recognize the Y logo and they know of the Y but we found a lot had a hard time identifying what we do.”

With that in mind, Sullivan and his team set out to change the Y’s image and started to work on creating a strong presence at community events. They also started getting out into the schools and having the schools visit the facility.

“We spent advertising dollars we’ve never spent before as a charity in the community,” he said. “As a non-profit we have to be very careful with our money but it was also important to create an awareness that we were coming and what we offered.”

The gymnasium at the new YMCA is pictured Thursday, June 15, 2017.Dax Melmer /
Windsor Star

It paid off for the YMCA, not only did membership and staff increase, but they started to offer a wide range of programs unique to this area. They created a one family pricing model, which was simply one price for all health and fitness programs for the whole family. They’ve added sports leagues and this summer for the first time will be offering day camp programs. They have added Camp Henry at Point Pelee National park. The facility features group fitness studios, a fully equipped gymnasium, six-lane, 25-metre pool, cardio fitness and weight workout studio along with a child minding service.

“The biggest thing we hear is ‘This is a Y?’ when they first walk in,” he said. “It just blows people away with the quality and everything that’s offered in this facility. It’s nothing we’ve ever had in the community.”

Sullivan said the downtown location created problems for the YMCA to be able to grow and thrive. The lack of parking was a huge issue and the building was dated, which makes it tough to expand.

“It was great for our downtown core,” he said. “But the accessibility was really tough. Being here on Central makes it so much easier for people to access us and I believe that really gave us a huge advantage.”

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